The administration of liquids from many bottles, such as medicine bottles, normally requires that an accurately prescribed amount is measured. Such measures may be described in terms of teaspoonfuls, tablespoonfuls, drops, or even more accurately, millilitres; all of which may be measured by pouring from the medicine bottle onto a spoon or into a measuring receptacle. When it is desired to dispense the medicine in very accurate millilitre amounts, it is normally necessary for an accurate subsidiary measuring device to be used, such as a graduated syringe or pipette.
With conventional medicine bottles, the bottle neck is free for a syringe to be inserted through the bottle neck and into the bottle. The syringe is generally dipped into the liquid in the bottle, and the plunger of the syringe pulled up by a user in order to withdraw liquid into the body of the syringe. Often, it is difficult to see the graduations on a syringe body in order for a user to determine exactly how much liquid has been withdrawn. Thus, commonly a user will withdraw a portion of liquid, check that the right amount of liquid has been withdrawn, and if not will return the syringe to the liquid to withdraw and eject more liquid in order to obtain the correct prescribed amount.
Thus, conventional methods of withdrawing liquids from bottles using syringes is problematical in that it is difficult to determine an accurate amount of liquid being withdrawn in a single operation into the syringe. Furthermore, as the syringe is dipped into the liquid, any microorganisms on the body of the syringe may be introduced into the medicine, which may potentially contaminate the medicine.
The problem of withdrawing a prescribed amount of medicine from the bottle using a syringe which is dipped into liquid in the bottle, is exacerbated when the bottle is of the type having a coloured glass, such a brown glass. Coloured glasses are commonly used where the medicinal contents are photosensitive, and it is desired to protect the medicine from ambient light when the medicine bottle is removed from a medicine cabinet or the like. If the medicine bottle has coloured glass, it can be very difficult or impossible to see through the glass to determine whether a prescribed amount of liquid has bee withdrawn into a syringe. The graduations on the syringe body may be very difficult to determine through the coloured glass.
The act of dipping a syringe into the liquid in a medicine bottle also coats the outside of the syringe body with the medicine, and as the syringe is withdrawn from the bottle, the liquid coating on the syringe body may drip from the body onto the user or any surface around the user. This may necessitate cleaning of clothing, floors, surfaces etc.
It would therefore be advantageous to provide a liquid dispensing apparatus in which a syringe can be used to withdraw a liquid from a bottle, but such that the syringe, and especially graduations on it, are visible to a user without occlusion by the bottle. It would be also advantageous to provide a liquid dispensing apparatus in which a minimum surface area of the syringe contacts the liquid in the bottle in order to minimise potential contamination of the liquid in the bottle by micro organisms from the syringe, and which minimises the amount the syringe body which can be covered in liquid, to reduce the possibility of spillages onto a user and/or a surface around the user. Furthermore, it would be advantageous to provide a bottle incorporating all of the above mentioned advantages, and in which, if it is desired not to use a syringe, liquid can be poured from the bottle in a conventional fashion without undue obstruction of the liquid through the bottle neck due to complicated caps and/or inserts.
It is therefore an aim of preferred embodiments of the invention to overcome or mitigate the problems of the prior art whether expressly disclosed herein or not.